Machine Type Communications (MTC) (also referred to as Machine-to-machine (M2M) communications) refers to generally to communication that does not involve, or has very limited, human intervention.
Whilst MTC/M2M applications have been known since the earliest days of modern computing and communication, and pre-date more modern mobile (cellular) communications, MTC/M2M communications are now increasingly responsible for the growing data traffic in mobile communications networks with MTC/M2M devices expected to outnumber voice subscribers by two orders of magnitude or higher.
In order to better manage this data traffic, Mobile Network Operators (MNO) generally use multiple dedicated Access Points in their networks to route incoming M2M Applications data to corresponding M2M Applications servers. For the exchange of packet (e.g. internet protocol based) data to take place in most M2M applications, the items of user equipment (“UEs”—for example, embedded M2M modules, or mobile devices including such modules) on which the applications are implemented therefore need to know the correct Access Point Name (APN) to connect to.
Currently, in order to facilitate this, many MNOs are also M2M Service Providers who provide “end-to-end” solutions with applications and memory of the UEs being preconfigured with APNs and any other appropriate details of the access points of the MNO who provided/deployed the services.